Stacking Barbarian Warcries

[Occhidiangela]

Edited due to lack of clarity. Substantial changes. A nod to Tommi for his excellent site.

I am making a 1.10 Beta Barbarian who will use Frenzy, boost it with Taunt for added damage, and add also some Berserk for its magical damage boost to Frenzy as well as for the occasional Stoned Skin boss killing.

This leaves me pondering what to do with Battle Cry, a favorite skill of mine. We discussed a while back at the Armory a "max Taunt with uber skill adders" approach where Taunt at slvl 47 would yield some 99%-101% damage reduction, not to mention a significant AR reduction to non boss/non champion monsters. Fanatacism and Might auras did not seem to be influenced, just regular/minion monsters and their damage. Battle Cry works for ALL enemies, to include Duriel in patch 1.10, Mr "Physical Damage Himself."

Battle Cry stacks on top of War Cry and Taunt, at least the graphic does.

War Cry is a damage and stunning effect, which is a bit different than Battle Cry, which subtracts from monster Defense Rating and from monster applied damage as a percentage of damage. Different functions being pointed to, so to speak.

From Tommi Gustaffsen's excellent site, we know that:

Final Damage = ((Damage - DR) * (1 - Resistance / 100) * (1 - 2 * Absorb% / 100) - 2 * Absorb - ArmorSkill) * XvX * (1 - ES / 100)

-DR comes in a variety of flavors. "75% is a normal cap for players" applies, as far as I know, solely to items and resistance while Battle Cry at very high levels (such as 20) yields -49% all by itself. It appears, if I remember our discussion correctly, that adding Shaftstop, 25% -DR, to String of Ears (10%) to Rockstopper (10%) would yield a 95% physical damage reduction. I don't recall if the cap is a hard 75% or if Physical damage reduction is capped at 95%, or if it is even capped at all. It seemed from our discussion that there was, virtually, no cap. As I understand it, the monster's damage to you is calculated with Battle Cry or (and?) Taunt modifier considered, and then your own "physical resistance" number if you have items so equipped further modifies it in a two step process to arrive at some final damage.

Given that Taunt and Battle Cry apparently influence the physical damage somewhat differently, I am puzzling over how to combine their effects. The reason for so much Taunt is to increase Frenzy's s effectiveness, but the side benefit is potentially tremendous to a dual wielder who wants to mix it up and avoid Stun Lock problems in crowds in late stages of the game. Given that Taunt allows some crowd control to begin with merely makes it more useful, for those of us who try to use tactics. :)

Combining Taunt at level six (at the moment) I get -19% to AR and -19% to damage on every Taunted monster. When they all crowd around me, I find that I can stack Battle Cry on top of Taunt. What I don't quite know yet, as I have only played about with this slightly and am not a "code reader" is:

Is this a display bug? Does -AR remain for Taunt when Battle Cry stacks on it? Does -DR remain for Taunt? Since Taunt is of infinite duration once cast on a monster, for practical purposes, I'd guess a flag is set. Other modifiers would probably stack on top of that, such as Weaken. (I forget if Weaken and Decrepify overwrite Taunt.)

Does the Battle Cry -25% Damage at level 1 overwrite the Taunt -19% Damage, leaving me with 25% reduced damage, or do they add together to make a -44% damage from the garden variety monster?

I will probably find myself some critters and de equip my Rogue Merc's poison bow at take a good hard look at the character screen tonight. Since the Lying Character Screen now and again fools you, I am curious as to what any of you have seen or confirmed insofar as the stacking of Battle Cry and Taunt.

The Over Caffeinated Smack Talking Barbarian Build, with maxed Taunt, Frenzy, 10 Berserk, and a WEapon Mastery appears to make a pretty "hard to beat on" Barbarian. I just need to keep the Mana Bulb well supplied. :)

Against crowds,consider following double whammie:

Slvl 20 (maxed synergy for Frenzy) yields -43% damage from critters, excepting bosses, and -43% to their AR, which means I will be hit less ofter, all 4X AR aside. :) This means that Shout and Iron Skin may not need as many points as I had planned originally.

At an easy to reach 24: -51% Damage from critters, and again their AR is halved, (-51%)

If I leave Battle Cry at level 1 I get, potentially, -68% and -76% damage from critters, respectively, IF the -DR is additive. If Battle Cry overwrites Taunt's _DR, I still ge the small benefit of significantly reduced AR, maybe. :) Tommi, have you seen evidence of this?

If I leave one point in Battle Cry, and get to slvl 5 with adders, not beyond reasonable expectation, I end up with -29% damage for a whopping -72% and -80% DR before any nifty little items, should I be so lucky, like a Rockstopper, Shaftstop, or String of Ears, show up.

An Iron Barb may not need much Iron Skin except against a Fanaticism/Extra Strong Boss (that is what Bash is for) since each point in Taunt does double duty, besides reducing the volume of Missile Fire in the first place. . :o As I played a lot of Amazons, I'd say Taunt is equivalent to Dodge, with a few added benifits.

We had a very interesting discussion on the old board (the most recent old board) on the invincible Barb, IIRC Warblade started it, and I was wondering if anyone had a link to that old thread? I'd like to compare that comments there with what I am seeing.